Christmas 2000

Merry Christmas from the Ericksons!

1335 North 600 East, Lehi, UT 84043 - http://www.ericksonfamily.com

Paige doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve decided to start on the Christmas letter without her! Since I’m starting it (without any adult supervision), I thought I’d write this Christmas Letter from a guy’s point of view! Here are some of the things we bought recently:

A Building Lot:  Last year, we purchased a lot in Highland, about 6 miles from where we live now. We expect to start building on it in the next couple of months.  We have been working on house plans, and we’re excited to get started on it!  It’ll have a lot of wire installed…

Tile and Railing:  This year, I continued to work on the basement.  I’m pretty close to finishing after only a year and a half, and that’s a good thing, since I’m planning on doing the electrical / phone / cable work on the new house!

Phast equipment:  In December 1999, Phast called an employee meeting to tell us that they were re-locating the Salt Lake office to Dallas in March.  I had the choice of staying with Phast and moving to Dallas, or finding a new job.  Paige and I decided not to move to Dallas, so I found a new job.  I now work for Intel in American Fork. Before leaving Phast, I purchased quite a bit of Phast equipment for the new house!

Miscellaneous Electrical Parts: My major project this summer was helping Brian and Amy do the electrical work on their new home.  I made a lot of trips to Alpine, where their house was being built. For a couple of weeks I seemed to live out there.  Brian and Amy put much more time in, since they were being their own contractors.  At one point, when I told the kids I was going to work, Natalie asked… “At Brian’s house?”

A Piano:  Our latest adventure was when Paige bid in 3 online auctions to buy a used piano from Alpine School District.  Paige won one of the auctions, and we brought the piano home.  It is a large upright, at least 50 years old, but pretty.  It could use a little finishing work, but sounds pretty good.  Needless to say, we have another project.   :)

A baby!: We should probably explain about one of the purchases we have planned for early next year, too!  We’re planning on making a major addition to our expenses in the house in February.  We are expecting another baby girl.

Just a little note from Paige here.  Many thanks to Ryan for this year’s Christmas letter.  Not exactly how I would have done it, but at least he did it!  He tells me I’m to fill in the “touchy-feely” part of the letter, so here goes:

**Cole (6 1/2) is enjoying first grade.  He’s a wonderful reader and likes to write stories.  He recently made a bunch of Thanksgiving cards with pictures of “Terkeys” on them.  He’s learning to do jobs around the house to help mom out a little bit.  He is excited to learn to play the piano, now that we have one, and even plunked out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” by himself!

**Megan (4 1/2,) is  quite a little artist.  On any given day she may  create 4 or 5 different masterpieces that she then tapes up around the house and in her room.   She is also good with animals.  She’s come along way since last year’s unfortunate incident of pulling out almost all of our cockatiel’s tail feathers.  She is now very gentle with both Sundance and Zuzu (our birds) and is not afraid to hold them or have them on her shoulder.

**Natalie (2) keep us busy and entertained.  What a little character!  She stubbornly insists on wearing her swimming suit at least once a week around the house, sometimes accompanied by Megan’s tap or ballet shoes.  She loves going to nursery at church, and asks every day if she can go to nursery (we wish she could!) although keeping her quiet during sacrament meeting is our current challenge.  She talks rather loudly and non-stop.  We were quite embarrassed when during the closing prayer she shouted out “CAN I HAVE GUMMY BEARS PLEASE?!”.

We send our love and wish you all the best at Christmastime and all year Long.!!

Ryan, Paige, Cole, Megan and Natalie Erickson